Teacher of the Year has green thumb for growing students' knowledge

ELKTON — Most people make the same wrong assumption about Brittany Rigdon.

“No, I did not grow up on a farm,” Rigdon said with a chuckle, before noting, “But a lot of people think that I did.”

The mistake is understandable, though, given that Rigdon has been a high school agriculture/horticulture teacher for the past 16 years — the last seven of which in the Cecil County Public Schools system — and that her classroom is a greenhouse.

But the reason for the common misconception goes well beyond the basic fact that Rigdon teaches horticulture at the Cecil County School of Technology. For anyone who has interacted with her, the confusion has a lot to do with Rigdon’s vast knowledge of horticulture and all subjects related to it.

Perhaps the biggest reason people mistakenly believe that she has worked on a family farm since childhood, however, is this: Ridgon exudes a green-thumb passion for horticulture and for effectively teaching the subject to her students.

And those are some of the reasons why Rigdon is the 2024 Cecil County Teacher of the Year, a distinction that CCPS officials announced last month during a gala at The Wellwood restaurant in Charlestown.

‘ON OUR LEVEL’

“She does way more than just being a teacher,” said 18-year-old Colin Schmoker, a Rising Sun High School senior who is one of Ridgon’s 18 students in the two-year horticulture program. “Because of our plant sales, the goals that she sets for herself and for us helps us, as individuals, set our own goals for school, for work and for life in general.”

Schmoker was referring to how Rigdon uses a practical-application approach inside her main classroom — a 90’-by-30’ greenhouse where, under her guidance, students grow 1,200 poinsettias during the fall semester and then thousands of colorful flowers during the spring semester.

With all of the proceeds redirected into the school’s horticulture program, Ridgon and her students sell the poinsettias at Christmastime and then, during this time of the year, they sell spring flowers, including ones that have been arranged into prom corsages.

Rigdon’s students will be selling class-grown flowers to the public between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday (May 4) during the annual Cecil County School of Technology Spring Showcase on the CCST campus at 912 Appleton Rd., northeast of Elkton.

During the process of preparing for the sales of poinsettias and spring flowers, Ridgon teaches her students about the business side, including pricing to turn a profit.

Rigdon provides her students with much more than backyard-garden skills and techniques for growing plants because this is, after all, a high school horticultural science class taught by a woman who presumably grew up on a farm.

Her students know how to take soil and texture samples, with the knowledge of which readings are desirable and undesirable and — just as importantly — why. They know how to operate tractors and other landscaping machines.

Rigdon’s students also know which pesticides to use, when to use them and how to apply them. Along those lines, all of the seniors in Rigdon’s class recently passed a Maryland Department of Agriculture pesticide application class and, as a result, they are legally permitted to spray higher-dose pesticides that are unavailable to the general public. The pesticide-applications certification enables her students to earn a higher wage on landscaping jobs than the pay for uncertified employees.

In addition, her students know how to identify scores of plants. One of her students recently passed an academically rigorous exam given by the Maryland Nursery Landscape Greenhouse Association (MNLGA) in which, as part of it, test takers must identify 240 types of plants.

Three of her students fell short by a half point and will retake the exam next week. The MNLGA test has a 33 percent pass rate and, for those who do make the grade, they are certified professional horticulturalists, which can lead to good-paying jobs and also waivers from certain college classes. Under the MNLGA umbrella are numerous prestiges gardens in the area, including Longwood Gardens.

There is much to learn in the CCST horticulture program and, according to her students, Rigdon is quite natural at imparting her wealth of knowledge to them.

“She likes to get on our level. She has a way of making us understand,” said Belle Granger, 17, a Rising Sun High School senior.

Joel George, an 18-year-old North East High School senior, echoed Belle.

“She has a great knowledge about her subject and makes it understandable for every student,” George said, adding that Rigdon is known to work right alongside her students. “She doesn’t just show up. She helps us.”

It’s noteworthy that Schmoker complimented Rigdon’s character, too, as did other students. “She is a kind person,” Schmoker said. “She is very well-respected and she treats everyone with respect.”

‘KIDS LIKE MYSELF’

A Wilmington, Del. native who grew up in a suburban neighborhood, Rigdon took classes in the agriculture program at Thomas McKean High School in Hockessin, Del. because she considered pursuing a career as a veterinarian.

While serving as a student aide for her agriculture teacher during her senior year, however, Ridgon made a realization that put her own a different career path.

“A lightbulb turned on. I decided that I wanted to teach kids — like myself — that you don’t have to grow up on a farm to have a career in agriculture,” Rigdon said.

So, after graduating from Thomas McKean High School in 2004, Rigdon selected her courses accordingly while attending Delaware Valley University in Doylestown, Pa. And in 2008, she graduated from that college with a B.S. Degree in secondary education and agriculture.

After her college graduation and before starting her teaching career, Rigdon served a summer internship at Winerthur Museum, Garden and Library in Delaware. “I lived on the property and I learned to love plants,” Rigdon remarked.

Students in Rigdon’s two-year horticulture program gain the knowledge and experience to work in landscaping, at greenhouses, in florists shops and on farms. Related jobs also can be found in the government sector. In addition, they can go to college and pursue advanced degrees in horticulture.

In her Teacher of the Year essay, Rigdon cited a famous quote and then put her own spin on it, taking the liberty to creatively express her belief that each student needs the attention and care of a teacher to flourish.

“I wrote, ‘To plant a seed is to believe in the future’,” Rigdon said. “Then I wrote that you have to have more than a belief system to grow a garden. You have to tend to the crops — and every student has his or her own needs.”

Although she didn’t grow up on one, it’s noteworthy that Ridgon now lives on a 20-acre farm in Conowingo with her husband, George Rigdon, and that she tends to flower beds there and other chores that come with the bucolic territory.

“I married a farm guy,” Rigdon laughed. “We have tractors, chickens, hay, pumpkins, raspberries . . .”